Age of Jackson Con’t
Henry Clay’s American System
• Plan to unify the nation
– Internal improvements: canals, roads,
railroads
– Protective Tariff: tax on imported goods to
protect american manufacturing
• Tariff of 1816: first passed by congress and signed
by Prez. Madison
– Money collected would be used to fund internal
improvments
» Supported in North
» Opposed in South
Henry Clay’s American System
– Second Bank
of the US
• Would issue
national
currency
• Would hold all
taxes collected
by the federal
government
• Chartered for
20 years
A satire on Andrew Jackson's campaign to destroy the
Bank of the United States and its support among state
banks. Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Jack Downing
struggle against a snake with heads representing the
states.
Supreme Court (Marshall) Boosts
Federal Gov’t Power
• Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
– Ogden had monopoly on steamboat
service between NY and NJ
– Gibbons started competing service
– Ogden sued
– Marshall ruled that monopoly was
illegal, interstate commerce could
only be regulated by federal
government not states
– Significance: Congress had the
power to regulate all interstate
commerce
Supreme Court (Marshall) Boosts
Federal Gov’t Power
• McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
– Maryland taxed national bank in Baltimore
– Marshall ruled that the federal gov’t is
supreme over state gov’t, and therefore a
state cannot tax a federal agency
– Significance:
• National bank was declared constitutional (implied
powers of the constitution
• Federal gov’t control over economic issues was
strengthened by weakening state powers
Supreme Court (Marshall) Boosts
Federal Gov’t Power
• Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
– New Hampshire wanted to alter the charter of
Dartmouth to make it a state school
– Marshall ruled that a charter was a contract and
Constitution did not allow states to interfere with
contracts
– Significance: weakened power of state gov’t
Tariffs and States Rights
• First tariff passed in 1816, increased in
1824 and 1828
– Designed to protect American industries from
foreign competition
– Disliked by Southern states = agricultural
economy based on cotton, not industrial
• Tariff of 1828 (Tariff of
Abominations)….very high!!!
Tariffs and States Rights
• John C. Calhoun (vice-prez) opposed tariff
– Though it only benefited the north and would
cause the south to suffer, b/c goods would
cost more
– Nullification Theory: a state had the right to
reject a federal law if that state believed it was
unconstitutional
• This political cartoon criticizes major figures,
depicting each riding a favorite ―hobbyhorse.‖
Third from the right is John C. Calhoun, who is
the driver of southern nullification of the Tariff of
Abominations.
Tariffs and States Rights
• Webster-Hayne Debate: in senate
– Robert Hayne (SC)-argued that the tariff
violated states rights
– Daniel Webster (MA)-argued the tariff=law
and must be followed
• Andrew Jackson (Prez)-argued the Union
must be preserved, meaning the law must
be enforced
– Calhoun and Jackson never worked together
again
Tariffs and States Rights
• Nullification Crisis (1832): SC v. Jackson
– SC nullified Tariffs in 1828 and 1832
• Threatened to secede from Union
– Jackson signed the Force Bill (allowed federal
government to use military force to enforce
federal law and collect tariff revenues
– Resolved by Henry Clay: new tariff rates
would lower the tariff over time
Jackson and the National Bank
• Jackson hated 2nd Bank of the United
States (BUS)…argued that it helped the
wealthy
– Vetoes new bank charter in 1832
– Removes money from bank and puts it in ―Pet
Banks‖ (state banks run by loyal democrats)
– Significance: led to the formation of Whig
Party
• Hated Jackson
• Leaders: Henry Clay, John Q. Adams, Daniel
Webster
• Whigs devoted to the American System
– Significance: led to the Panic of 1837 (severe
economic depression)
• Pet banks issued worthless currency
– Significance: led to the formation of Whig
Party
• Hated Jackson
• Leaders: Henry Clay, John Q. Adams, Daniel
Webster
• Whigs devoted to the American System
– Significance: led to the Panic of 1837 (severe
economic depression)
• Pet banks issued worthless currency
• Jackson passed the Specie Circular (federal lands
could only be bought or sold using gold and silver
Van Buren Deals with Jackson’s
Legacy
• Martin Van Buren: handpicked successor of
Jackson, won election of 1836
– Administration hurt by Panic of 1837
• Election of 1840= Van Buren (Dem.) vs. William
Henry Harrison (Whig)
– Harrison was military general and war hero, won
election
• Used new style of campaigning
– Slogan- ―Tippecanoe and Tyler too!‖
– Appealed to common men-Log Cabin and Hard Cider
Campaign
• Died in office after 1 month
– John Tyler = New president, called ―His Accidency‖
Slavery and Abolition
• Abolitionists Speak Out
– Abolition: movement to outlaw slavery that
gained momentum in the 1830s
– William Lloyd Garrison—white abolitionist and
newspaper editor in Boston, MA
• In 1831, he began publishing The Liberator, a
newspaper that called for immediate,
uncompensated emancipation (freeing of slaves)
• In 1833, he started the American Anti-Slavery
Society, a group of white and black members who
were committed to ending slavery
Slavery and Abolition
• Frederick Douglass: African-American
abolitionist and escaped slave from
Maryland who became a public speaker
for the American Anti-Slavery Society
– Eventually published his own newspaper, The
Northstar
Slavery and Abolition
• Life Under Slavery
– US had 2 million slaved by 1830, and 4 million by 1860
– Most slaves had been born in the US and spoke english and
worked on plantations
– Marriage allowed but not legally protected by law
– Plantation (rural) slavery
• Worked from dawn to dusk in fields
• White overseer or slave driver was place in charge of work crews to
make sure slaves worked throughout the day
– Urban Slavery
• Some skilled jobs in cities were opened up for slaves
– Mill work, shipping, carpentry, blacksmithing
– Slave owners hired out their slaves to factory owners
Slavery and Abolition
• Slave Rebellions
– Stono Rebellion (1739): 20 slaves in South Carolina tried to
escape to Spanish controlled Florida
• All captured, killed, and beheaded
– Gabriel Prosser (1800): Plotted to take over Richmond, VA
• Captured, killed
– Denmark Vesey (1820): Plotted to take over Charleston, SC
• Captured and killed before rebellion
– Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831): 80 slaves in VA attacked several
plantation killing 60 whites
• State militia captured them
• Put on trial, convicted, and hanged
• Significance:
– White on black violence erupted (200 blacks killed)
– Southern whites determined to defend the institution of slavery
– Slave codes: state laws passed to restrict slaves’ activities
Women and Reform
• Women’s Roles in the Mid-1800s
– Cult of Domesticity: dominant idea of the 1800s that
married women were restricted to housework and
children
• No political rights for women-no right to vote
– Women became social active in the mid-1800s
• Abolition movement: worked to abolish slavery
• Temperance movement: worked to prohibit alcohol
• Education movement: pushed for more educational
opportunities for women
• Significance: all of these social movements provided women
with the opportunity to become active outside of the home,
which helped lead to the push for increased rights
Women and Reform
• Women’s Rights Movement
Emerges
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Attended an anti-slavery convention in
Great Britain (1840) where women were
discriminated against
• Decided to form a women’s rights
convention and establish a women’s rights
movement
Women and Reform
– Seneca Falls
Convention (1848):
women’s rights
convention held by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucretia Mott
• Women drafted the
―Declaration of
Sentiments‖ to call for
increased women’s rights
including the right to vote
– Based on declaration of
independence
– ―we hold these truths to
be self evident: that all
men an women are
created equal‖
• Seneca Falls
Women and Reform
– Susan B. Anthony
• Became a leading
advocate for women’s
suffrage in the mid to late
1800s
• Along with Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, founded NAWSA
(National American
Women’s Suffrage
Association) in 1890
Women and the Economy
•
Women In Factories
–
–
–
–
Women had spun yarn, wove clothes, made candles,
soap, butter, and cheese at home (some worked the
fields with men)
Manufactured goods were created faster than ones at
home
Factory jobs promised greater economic independence
for women and a means to buy the manufactured
goods in the new market economy
Women worked 6 days a week for up to 13 hours
Lowell System
•
•
•
•
•
Textile mill at Lowell, MA was a model factory
Women were hired from the surrounding
countryside, brought to town, and housed in
dorms in mill towns
Women were escorted to church from their
boardinghouse and forbidden to form unions
Would have a rotating labor supply so no unions
could be formed
These factories were to be better than the dirty,
corrupt others in New England
Opportunities For Women Are Few
•
•
•
•
•
Women in factories was unusual
Opportunities for women to be self-supporting
were rare and included nursing, domestic service,
and teaching
1/10 white families employed servants by 1850
(most were women, black, or immigrant)
10% of women were working for pay outside their
own homes
20% of women had been employed at some time
before marriage
Status of Working Women
•
•
•
Were single. When married, they left
their working jobs and became
wives/mothers
―Cult of domesticity‖ – widespread
cultural belief that glorified the functions
of the homemaker (mothers gave their
children morals)
Women thought this was a step up from
working with men in the fields
Changing Roles –
•
•
Instead of arranged marriages, married
by love (parents still had veto power)
As a result, families became more
closely knit
Workers and ―Wage Slaves‖
•
•
•
•
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–
–
–
–
–
•
Factory System
Manufacturing had been done in the home or small shop --now it was in a factory (couldn’t maintain an intimate
relationship with the workers as much anymore)
Bosses got rich
Workers worked:
Long hours
Had low wages
Meals were skimpy
Unsanitary buildings
Poorly ventilated, lighted, and heated
Forbidden by law to form labor unions to raise wages
(thought was related to criminal conspiracy)
Many strikes resulted
Children Workers
•
In 1820, many children under the age of
ten worked
These children were:
•
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–
–
–
Neglected emotionally
Affected mentally
Physically stunted
Brutally whipped
Workers in the 1830s
•
•
Many were granted the right to vote
Workers originally gave their loyalty to Jackson
and the Democratic party
–
•
He attacked the Bank of the U.S. and was against all
forms of a privileged social class developing in the new
capitalist economy
They demanded:
–
–
–
–
–
10-hour day
Higher wages
Tolerable working conditions
Public education for their children
End to imprisonment for debt
Long Workdays
•
Employers argued that reduced hours
would:
–
–
–
–
•
Lessen production
Increase costs
Demoralize workers
Lead to so much leisure time that the Devil
would lead them into trouble
Van Buren established the 10-hour day
for federal employees. Several States
followed suit years later
Strikes and Unions
•
Strikes
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–
•
1830s-1840s – Many strikes occurred, most for higher
wages, some for the ten-hour day, and a few for unusual
job goals, such as the right to smoke
Employers won more often than not because they could
get immigrants to replace their striking workers (―scabs‖)
Unions
–
–
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1830 - 300,000 trade unions
1837 – As the depression hit, unemployment spread
and union membership decreased
1842 – Commonwealth v. Hunt – Mass. Supreme Court
ruled that labor unions were not illegal conspiracies
2nd Great Awakening
• 19th century religious movement in which
individual responsibility for seeking
salvation was emphasized, along with the
need for personal and social improvement
Revivals
• An emotional meeting designed to awaken religious
faith through impassioned preaching and prayer
• Might last for 4-5 days
• Daytime—study the Bible and examine their souls
• Nighttime—heard emotional preaching that could
make them cry out, burst into tears, or tremble with
fear
African American Church
• 2nd Great Awakening brought Christianity to
enslaved African Americans
• Strong belief in churches that all people (black or
white) belonged to the same God.
• In the South the churches were segregated,
different places to sit
• Many free African Americans worshiped in separate
black churches
• African Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in
Philadelphia
Transcendentalism
• A philosophical and literary movement that
emphasized living a simple life and celebrated the
truth found in nature and in personal emotion and
imagination
• Transcendentalists were involved in such movements
as anti-slavery, temperance, public education,
women’s rights, and many public morality issues.
Transcendentalism
• 2 important writers:
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
– Henry David Thoreau
• Both stressed American idea or optimism, freedom, and self
reliance
• Thoreau believed in the importance of individual
conscience
– A pupil and friend of Emerson
– Strong opponent of the War With Mexico, even going to jail
for a night for refusing to pay tax
– Strong opponent of Slavery—saw it as an immoral evil.
– Wrote Civil Disobedience in which he advocates disobeying
any immoral or unjust law
Utopian Communities
• An experimental community designed to
be a perfect society, in which its members
could live together in harmony
• Brook Farm is an example…it lasted 6
years
• Most lasted no more than a few years
Shaker Communities
• Followed the teachings of Ann
Lee
• Set up communities in NY, New
England, and on the frontier
• Shared goods with each other
• Believed men and women were
equal, and refused to fight for
any reason
• Never got married, but adopted
children
Reforming Asylums and Prisons
• Began to emphasize the idea of rehabilitation,
treatment that might reform the sick or imprisoned
person to a useful position in society
• 1840 mentally ill people were placed in prison with
criminals.
• In prison or jails men, women, children, harden
criminals, and minor offenses all served time in
same place.
• Dorothea Dix leads a reform movement that will
separate these people and 15 states will begin
putting mentally ill people in hospitals instead of
prison.
Improving Education
• Massachusetts and Vermont were the first to require
that children go to school
• Younger and older students were all in the same
classroom
• Few children continued beyond the age of 10
• Many Americans by the 1830s began to demand
tax-supported public schools
• By the 1850s every state had provided some form of
publicly funded elementary schools